


The River

by song_of_amethyst



Category: Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb, Fitz and the Fool Trilogy - Robin Hobb, Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 09:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28468662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/song_of_amethyst/pseuds/song_of_amethyst
Summary: When the hunt was over, dreams remained.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 9
Collections: Winterfest - Rote Gift Exchange☆





	The River

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pelicandaughter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pelicandaughter/gifts).



> Happy new year! All my best wishes! 💜💜

Before there were dreams, first there was the hunt, and out of the two, only the hunt truly felt like a dream.

It started with the hunger. Not for flesh, not for blood, but for that which made the mind of humans. The essence of their memories and their awareness; that which resided in their blood only for as long as they drew breath. It was the same craving for absolute connection that he had once sought as a human, save that instead of making himself part of everything, he now felt the urge to make everything part of him. Yet it was not a mindless desire, indifferent to what it would take to satisfy it; it was driven by a purpose far beyond physical need. He felt the impulse to protect as strongly as he felt the impulse to kill. And eagerly, he flew towards his prey as if beholding a long-held dream coming true.

Almost out of nowhere, others joined his flight, following the lead of a Scentless rider. The alliance felt as wrong as it felt right, for the dragons were not competing for prey. They made his purpose theirs, joined forces against a common target like wolves. Dragons did _not_ hunt in packs; somehow, he could be sure of that without ever seeing a dragon of flesh. But those were not dragons. They were far more than that. They had stone for flesh, magic for blood, and the instinct of whatever it was that roused them.

When the hunt was over, dreams remained. All the stolen memories warred with those that first made him, yet they never came close to make him doubt who he was. He knew the difference between the life that he took for sustenance and the lives freely given to create him. Two oddly matched people with minds linked so tightly it should not have mattered where one ended and the other started, except it did. They seamlessly tied together and only felt distinct because neither had felt whole to begin with. They still grieved the loss of the ones they were linked to in life; those people who by all accounts should have been one with them in the stone, except that they weren't.

At times, he could almost hear one such voice. Like a whisper, only slightly out of earshot, only loud enough for him to wish he could make out what it said.

Only present enough for him to feel the loss when it finally retreated, discouraged by his lack of response.

But he saw the boy. Perhaps right beside him or thousands of leagues away. Perhaps now, perhaps an eternity ago. He no longer entertained such notions as when and where; they mattered little as things were. That was not to say that things did not change when you are part of the Skill, or that they all happened at once. Rather, time became an uncertain notion, its flow and its direction changing at will, so that tomorrow could be a long-forgotten past or a distant future. He could try and attach time to events if he wished to, but it would cost too much. The harder he tried to grasp the flow of time as humans perceived it, the more certain he became of it, the less specific everything else would become, including his own identity. And he would grieve that loss far worse than losing track of time. Time was only worth considering when your youth flies by and never comes back, not when change could only last so much before it reversed. It made a far greater difference to people, enough to drive the foolish attempt to cross the currents without becoming one with them, to risk losing a lifetime for the sake of saving a day or two.

Some lost their minds, others lost their bodies. Most lost both, and all lost their memories of the transition. Perhaps that was the greatest tragedy of all, for when you are not aware of what you lost, you can still believe yourself to be whole. But no one could know how tiny the odds of escaping had been for them and still attempt the experience once more.

To a human, it was too much awareness and yet not enough; a dangerous place to visit, but it called to them like it had called to him once, when he had been someone else. The Skill beckoned and it was only too easy for the mind to answer the call. It was as easy to jump into the stream as it was hard for the mind to still know itself, or to once more be anything but part of the collective. The notion of it leaving again was strange to picture; if you pour water into a stream and fill your bucket anew, you can never again hold the same water in it. But there was magic in naming, and magic in blood, and the mind who can respond to either can, with luck, escape.

A bizarrely mismatched group got lost, once. Even where the awareness made it difficult to be surprised by anything, they were so obviously foreign to any land where memory stone or legends about it even existed. They poured their minds into the stream with a rare stupidity. Their presence seemed forced and unnatural, and even the Skill they used to join the stream was stolen. And oddly familiar. He felt the disturbing sense of staring at a part of himself detached from him, before realising that in some sense, it was. The Silver markings on that detached skin had once come from him.

When they dissolved into the Skill, it seemed as though the stream itself was flinching away from what it saw in their consciousness and memories. A feeling of unusual wrongness submerged him, and it drew his attention to a small child with unlikely colouring among them. He felt a strange kinship towards her, and the contrast to what the rest of the group felt like made him aware of her, and only her. Family had once been important to him, he remembered. To _them_. The memory of an older brother, of a twin sister, of an only nephew, it blended all into the same thing: the impulse to reach out and draw her away from the stream. He did not know _her_ name, but he knew enough, knew that no matter how little she looked like a Farseer, they still shared a name, and blood. Pieces of the child found him, then found each other, and almost he knew her as a person. Almost he could speak to her, and he wished to, but no sooner had she become whole that the rest of the group started to emerge, unbidden, after her; piece by piece, memory by memory, until they were whole, too. They stuck to her like leeches, so desperate to carry her away, so afraid of the consequences of failure that they recalled their evil intent when they could not even recall their names. He felt a tinge of sorrow for her, and just maybe pity to see the self-destructive foolishness that cruelty could breed.

They left, but the sorrow did not. Regrets and longing from a past life came to the surface, yet in this form, he was powerless. It felt painfully familiar, that he could only observe the suffering from afar, be a spectator with no way to interfere. The worst was likely that in this form, he had the strength to observe whatever he wished to for as long as he wanted. He could drown in the awareness of people he loved suffering, and no physical need would ever recall him to his body. Stone required little to keep existing, but it could not move unless it was moved.

He dreamed of hunting again.


End file.
